Tax authorities mount raids on 11 German banks, 8 homes

Eleven banks and eight private homes and offices across Germany have been raided by police and tax investigators.

The raids were part of the same investigation started last November over money laundering allegations linked to the so-called Panama Papers scandal, alleged to involve Deutsche Bank.

The eight individuals under investigation are alleged to have founded companies in offshore tax havens aided by a former British Virgin Islands branch of Deutsche Bank.

“With the help of a former subsidiary of a major German bank, they are each believed to have founded companies in tax havens on the British Virgin Islands to hide capital gains from the German tax authorities and evade tax that was due on them,” Frankfurt state prosecutors said in a statement.

Among the properties searched were the offices of tax advisers and asset management companies, in Munich, Hamburg, Bad Tölz, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Aachen, Cologne and Sylt, an island off the North Sea coast. ■